Huntington VT – The Wrap Up

So we arrived home on a lovely evening and began the great unpack. Today it’s raining, again.
The rest of our trip home was completely uneventful, thank goodness. All in all we travelled ten thousand miles in four weeks. You should also note that the actual drive was spread over only 19 days of those four weeks. If anyone wants to emulate our trip, plan to do it in six weeks or more. All in all we passed through 26 states and one Canadian province.
Here is our long list of stats, for those who are into such things:
Cheapest Gas: $2.36 in Shelby, IA
Most Expensive: $3.20 Tehachapi, CA
Hottest day: 111 degrees in the Mojave Desert
Coldest: that 40 degree night in Keystone South Dakota
Flattest place: The Texas Panhandle
Most Mountainous: Colorado, near Leadville
Tackiest State: Tennessee, Nashville specifically
Classiest State: New Mexico
Most Beautiful: Colorado
Best Cuisine: Santa Fe with New Orleans as a close second
Best Campground: Rancheros De Santa Fe, Santa Fe NM
Worst Campground: Dallas/Forth Worth KOA in Arlington, TX
Longest Driving Day: Arlington TX to Santa Fe, NM (630 miles, 10.5 hours)
Shortest: San Rafael, CA to Atascadero, a cakewalk
Best Shopping: the Native Artisans outside the Palace of the Governors, Santa Fe NM
Best License Plate: Arizona (picture of a cactus and a hill)
Most states passed through in a day: Four (Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisana)
Weirdest Town Names: No Name, CO; Kickapoo, IL; Beowawe, NV; Loveland IA; Minihaha, SD; Smartsburg, IN
Weirdest Street Name: Zzyzx Road, somewhere in CA
Best Ice Cream: Jersey Junction, Grand Rapids MI; Close Second – Ghiradelli’s, San Francisco, CA; Third – Bali’s, San Luis Obispo, CA
Highest Speed Limit: 80 MPH, Scipio, UT
Highest Elevations: Jacob Lake AZ (8500 ft), Leadville, CO (10,200 ft)
Lowest Elevation: New Orleans, LA (at or below sea level)
Traffic Jams: Las Vegas, NV; Iowa; Ontario, Canada
Total Rainy Days: Zero
Total Thunderstorms: Eight
Total Thunderstorms when Uncle Bryan was on the phone: three
Postcards Sent: 49
Traffic Tickets: Zero
Total spent on gas: $1458.69
What have we learned? We’ve seen that this continent is vast and varied and, for the most part full of a whole bunch of empty space. In Wyoming you can see for a hundred miles and all you can see in that hundred miles is power lines and Pronghorn antelope. We’ve seen cities so well designed and structured that you don’t even recognize that you’re in a city. We’ve seen cities knocked to their knees but in the process of rebuilding better, greener and more responsibly than ever before. And we’ve seen cities whose sole purpose appears to be to dazzle, overwhelm and ultimately demean. We’ve seen armadillos, sea otters, elephant seals, moose, pronghorns, wild horses and lots and lots of cattle. We’ve been roasted and frozen, blown about and rained on (but just a little).
Did we have a good time? All in all, absolutely yes. There were times of stress, a bit of fear every now and then, but for the most part we really enjoyed ourselves.
Would we do it again? Probably not. Our road tripping from this point forward is probably going to be in smaller chunks with the family airlifted into choice regions for lightning hiking raids into key areas.
From this point forward when asked “so have you seen such and such?”, chances are that all of us will be able to say “been there, and here’s the pictures.”